According to google dictionary, procrastination is the habit of unnecessarily delaying an important task, usually by focusing on less urgent, more enjoyable, and easier activities instead. It is different from laziness, which is the unwillingness to act. Procrastination can restrict your potential and undermine your career.
Procrastination can appear in our lives for various reasons and various ways. For the purpose of this blog, I am going to tell you how our need for perfection and people pleasing can make us procrastinate.
Procrastination Loop
The above procrastination loop explains clearly the mental process that happens on the back of our mind:
1) DESIRE: You want to take action towards a New Goal that will take you further on your life/work journey eg: I want to take care of myself,
2) BELIEF: A vital function of your mind is to protect you, even if it is at the cost of your own progress. Entering a new field, taking a new step in the unknown is unsafe for your mind so it will want to keep you in the comfort zone where it knows how to control the situation. Therefore, it will give you 100,000 different excuses to keep you there. For example: ‘I want to take care of myself, but I don’t have time,’ ‘but I don’t know where to start,’ ‘but I can’t afford to go to the gym,’ ‘but I don’t have the right tools to start,’ ‘but I don’t know what to do,’ etc., etc.
3) BEHAVIOR: As a result of all the excuses, you keep toying with the idea of taking care of yourself but cant get yourself to do it. So Overthinking, overwhelm with the constant brain chatter and lack of awareness of this subconscious game leads to no action and you stay on the same spot.
4) RESULT: you are struck with anxiety and guilt, your nervous system is wrecked, you start lashing out on everyone and can’t figure out why and you end up validating the self-fulfilling cycle of its better if you don’t try anything new.
However, this is a pattern you have the power to change, recreate a new pattern and achieve your goals. You have the CHOICE.
SUCCESS LOOP:
Success Loop
1) REWIRE: We rewire not by rejecting what our subconscious is telling us but by showing it another way by adding an ‘and’ e.g. “I want to take care of myself AND I can find some time in my schedule to fit that in as this is important for me, AND “I can go for a walk if not the gym, AND I can start with what I already have and know.”
Recreate a new pattern and achieve your goals. You have the CHOICE.
2) REWRITE: Affirmation sentences work when you have created space in your mind for a new way and I like using ‘I am capable of’ rather than ‘I am’ because the former creates a possibility in your mind whereas the latter seems like an overpowering statement to your subconscious and feels too imposing while it is trying to learn new patterns. e.g. I am capable of finding time to take care of myself.
3) BEHAVIOR: Now that you have created a new path of possibility, it’s time to take action and most mistakes happen at this stage, we take a big action step and can’t keep it up and then we go back to the self-fulfilling cycle. The key here is to decide on one small step, one small promise so that it’s not hard to keep up.
4) RESULT: empowerment, progress, and now you are showing proof of success & possibility to your subconscious mind.
Try this out this week and holla at me if you have questions!
xx
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